Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig lax14.vpls.net. NS
Answer
lax14.vpls.net. 2 NS ns1.vpls.net.
lax14.vpls.net. 2 NS ns1.iad1.vpls.net.
lax14.vpls.net. 2 NS ns2.lax10.vpls.net.
lax14.vpls.net. 2 NS ns1.phx1.vpls.net.
lax14.vpls.net. 2 NS ns1.sna1.vpls.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.iad1.vpls.net. 2 A 74.222.145.145
ns1.vpls.net. 2 A 209.11.240.38
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0